


look so pretty // gone so soon

by musiclily88



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Time, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, M/M, OFC - Freeform, OMC - Freeform, Some Humor, Some Plot, Some angst, first time past tense though, i dunno man this is a jumbled mess, uhhhh, what the fuck am i doing i have no idea someone help me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 19:22:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12217314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: Y'all, this is weirdly based on lyrics from the Fall Out Boy song "Centuries" and Harry Styles' song "Sign of the Times." It is a goddamn mess. I'm not even putting that in the notes, I am putting that in the STORY DESCRIPTION.





	look so pretty // gone so soon

**Author's Note:**

> read the story description

Harry doesn’t want to be famous; he wants to be _known._ He wants to leave fingerprints on the world that are so indelible he will never be forgotten. He wants to be a legend so mighty and big that nothing can ever tear him down, not for centuries. 

He dreams his lofty dreams and looks around at his classmates—down, now, actually, he’s finally gotten the height his mother always promised was coming—and he can’t imagine what their aspirations are. They seem so far away to him, so far away _from_ him that they’re occasionally invisible. He understands what it is to be invisible, and he wants to be _seen._ He wants to attack the world with a vengeance so much that everyone knows his name.

Being known didn’t used to matter to him, before, but it does now.

 

Harry’s not even upset at Louis for leaving, not anymore. He stayed angry for a year after Louis’ family moved away, and anger doesn’t really suit him well. That year burnt him out on anger, and all that it left in its wake was desperation.

Because, by some magical or predestined happenstance, Louis knew Harry. He saw all of him, every last stretch of skin and every fleeting smile. He saw it all, and he knew.

Harry needs to be known, and he understands that now. He didn’t at the time, didn’t for at least a year, until his rage spent itself and left him exhausted. Louis left him exhausted, too, on some level, by trying to maintain contact rather than letting Harry stew in his own anger. To this day, Harry still considers that a bit cruel, that almost-casual desire to stay in his life as if that would be good enough. As if that could ever be good enough.

It is not good enough, being known from a distance. Harry needs to be seen. Moreover, he’s coming to realize that he deserves it. He spent a year miserably angry and came out the other side anew, refreshed, and six inches taller. His body stretched to accommodate his new size, which took some adjusting, but what did not take adjusting was the newfound attention he suddenly garnered. It felt earned somehow.

After a year of eating lunch in the library every school day, quiet and unassuming, Harry felt like he was escaping a cave, as if seeing sunlight for the first time in months. But now the attention is assumed and he feels like he’s blooming. His lunchtime now is raucous and rowdy, loud with chattering conversations he can barely keep up with. His cheeks hurt from smiling nearly every day now, and it no longer feels forced. The first compliment he received on his dimples is still fresh in his mind, and it initally took him a moment to realize that he was being flirted with.

But it’s a common occurrence now, bright laughs and fist bumps and lingering touches on his arm—from guys and girls alike, as if he lit a beacon in the sky and they just _know._ He hasn’t landed on anyone specific, and he’s not actually sure if he wants to. He likes basking in all of it, likes interacting with lots of different people in lots of different ways. He’s met a lot of interesting people, lately, now that he’s not hiding himself away, lonely as a cloud.

Harry attends things now, like football games and parties and tryouts for the school play. He gets a solid speaking role, a meaty one, actually, and it makes his efforts feel worthwhile in a way they didn’t for a year. Something in his chest cracks open and starts to shine a little, and Harry thinks it feels like pride.

At one point, Harry has his eye on the leading lady, Cat, which his sister gives him endless shit for. He doesn’t have the words to explain to Gemma what the spotlight feels like, feeling gold, seeing dust motes filter through the air slowly, knowing everyone is watching you. He doesn’t have the words to explain that he knows Cat will remember him forever, because they’re at a crucial point in their lives right now and legends never die. He has no words to explain that she has lovely blue eyes, and he misses looking to see himself reflected in someone’s lovely blue eyes.

He has no words to admit that she’s probably a stand-in for someone else, and even if he did, he wouldn’t do it. He won’t admit it to her or to Gemma or to himself.

He and Cat share a kiss onstage every night, a flirty little peck of a thing, and Harry sees real promise in it until the cast party after their last show. He and Cat end up in other people’s arms, dancing, spinning out of one another’s orbits easily and never reconvening.

 

Come early winter, Harry’s shifted his sights to Jeff, his hapless lab partner who tries very hard. He tries very hard, and yet every experiment ends disastrously. He makes Harry laugh, and Harry really needs laughter back in his life. Laughter is another thing he didn’t know he needed until his life was bereft of it. Granted, his laughter is now coming at someone else’s expense, but Harry always helps him fix everything, set the chemicals right and fill in the lab reports correctly. Jeff always thanks him profusely, cheeks going pink every single time.

If for nothing else, Jeff will always remember Harry as the only reason he passed Chemistry. If for nothing else, Harry will always remember Jeff as the first closet-case he kissed under the bleachers beside the football field.

Harry refuses to sneak around—he doesn’t want secrets, doesn’t want to hide in the shadows. He wants to be seen and heard.

Things with Jeff don’t last long.

Harry tells himself it’s for valid reasons, like he came out years ago and refuses to be pulled back into the closet for anyone at any time, ever. He tries to convince himself that he’s just sticking to his principles, that he’s trying to live courageously, deliberately, but he’s never been a very good liar. He remembers someone else’s flushed cheeks and someone else’s laugh, and nothing will turn that memory to dust.

He goes into winter break with his eyes open, aware of his tendency to isolate and retreat, willing himself to reach out to people and make plans even when he feels utterly, utterly alone. His friends see him through, indulging his desire to bake Christmas cookies at two in the morning and letting him spike their eggnog. Veronica pets his hair and tells him that, yes, he looks very pretty and, yes, the cookies are delicious. She tells him that, yes, it’s the day before Christmas Eve, and she doesn’t ask why that thought almost makes him cry.

But his sister doesn’t have any such tact, and she knows him a little too well. She wakes him up on Christmas Eve with a cup of coffee and some aspirin, understanding that eggnog always makes him weepy and doesn’t sit well with his head the next day.

“Sign of the times,” he sighs, accepting the cup gratefully. He gulps down three swallows before taking the pills.

“What, that my little brother’s growing up? Nah, I think if that were the case, you’d have set out some aspirin the night before.” Gemma leans forward to flick him in the forehead. “Stop your crying, babe. It’ll be all right.”

“Will it?”

“We’ve been here before, yeah?”

“I remember.”

“We made it through last time.”

“I know.”

“Never learn.” She flicks him again. “Now get dressed and drink up. We’re going caroling later and mom bought you the most atrocious sweater. Gotta put on your finest clothes!”

He’s vexed, because part of him wants to go out caroling, ringing in the joy of the season and accepting loud applause from strangers at the old-folks home. But another, bigger part of him wants to wallow in his bed forever until he wastes away.

Because he’s trying to live courageously, he chugs his coffee and stumbles downstairs, where he eats four cookies and accepts the garish argyle sweater his mother proffers. He also accepts the radiant compliments from his rapt audience, popping them his dimple when they say he should sing professionally, that someday he’ll be famous. Dorothy, the nurse, calls him a shameless flirt, rolling her eyes.

 

As far as holidays go, it’s fairly unremarkable, which is easy enough to say when your heart’s already broken.

 

He rings in the new year epically smashed, holding onto the railing of Troy’s back deck with one hand and the other clutching a bottle of lukewarm champagne. He doesn’t make out with anyone at midnight, given that _being remembered_ is less likely when everyone’s completely wasted, but he does dole out cheek kisses to everyone in his immediate vicinity. All the guests roar with approval as someone in the neighborhood lights up some fireworks, and Harry thinks the year will be one for the record books. His hangover is also one for the record books, but he considers it worth the cost.

 

Harry tries out for the spring musical, and he lands the roles of the comedic foil to the main character’s uptight righteousness. He only partly regrets the position, because while he gets two solo songs, he also has to learn complicated footwork while still adjusting to his long, coltish limbs. But mostly he’s grateful for the time he gets to spend with the cast, particularly Maria and Lucy, who have taken him on as a pet project. They run through the choreography with him until he has literal nightmares about it, but he knows he’s better off for it.

He also gets to stare at Mathias during rehearsals, and that is absolutely time well spent, in his opinion. Mathias has shaggy hair and the kind of charisma Harry himself keeps trying to project, along with a big bright smile that he only shares with the truly blessed.

Because the musical is being put on by high-schoolers, Harry doesn’t get to share any onstage kisses with boys, but the tight space backstage affords him obvious and ample opportunities to fumble with Mathias. For that he is extremely grateful, although he’s not grateful for the hickey that he has to cover with cakey stage makeup just to avoid being peppered with curious questions from the entire cast.

They last through the end of February, but they never get more serious than two handjobs in the guys’ dressing room. Harry supposes he’ll be remembered for that too, on some level, although hearing a seventeen-year-old say Harry’s hands are the best he’s ever felt sounds a bit disingenuous.

Their split is no great loss, Mathias flitting directly into Luke’s arms while Harry shrugs the whole thing off. He’s got time and his own life to live, plus Mathias isn’t the only one in the world with charisma to spare.

Harry has strengths of his own, after all, and an intense love for theater. He doesn’t think he’ll be lacking for long. He grows his hair out longer, a big shaggier, curlier—it’s part vanity, part laziness, part to tell people he’s going to donate it to charity once he’s tired of it—and incorporates that into his new identity, his new way of being in the world. He likes the look, thinks it works for him, plus it gives him something to do with his hands when he feels antsy. He takes to flipping his hair out of his eyes at pretty much every opportunity.

The effect is something akin to _swoon-worthy,_ and the attention he gains is overwhelming. He appreciates it, but he also comes to relish time he can spend in a little bit of quiet now and again.

Some part of him, deep down inside, has internalized some of the confidence he’s been trying to project, even if at times the projection is fake. Somehow, against the odds he faced going in, he’s introjected something he thought he was only projecting.

He’s also taking Psychology as an elective, and it’s completely blowing his mind in ways he never anticipated. He really wishes he could anticipate things more readily, but it’s never really been his strong suit. He didn’t anticipate Louis leaving him, for example, and he knows with his entire being that he should have seen it coming.

So, while Harry’s confident now, he’s not cocky or too overly self-assured, and he’s still terrible at anticipating what’s just around the corner. He just is.

 

He gets a forceful, soul-jarring reminder of this when his mom tells him that Louis’ entire family is coming back to town over Louis and Lottie’s spring break, to visit their grandparents and to utterly wreck Harry’s world.

He stares at his mom, knowing he’s gone pale and sickly. His stomach churns with acid and everything tips sideways for a moment. He’s genuinely worried that he might pass out. His mom looks concerned, too, and she steps closer to him, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder.

She doesn’t look nearly as concerned as she would be if she knew the extent of the story, of his relationship with Louis and the way his heart is only just now starting to knit itself back together. She would probably be a whole lot angrier, which he doesn’t want, and disappointed in both him and Louis, which he also doesn’t want. He can’t bear any kind of negative reaction from his mother, never really has been able to, which means he goes out of his way to keep from doing anything disappointing. Mostly. Other times, given that he’s a terrible liar, he just completely omits the truth.

The story of his fumbling loss of virginity and subsequent absolute heartbreak is not one she needs to hear, and it’s not one Harry wants to relive. He’s done his damnedest to push that story from his mind, to distract himself with reinvention and pretty people, and if she hears that story, she’ll know that he’s still not operating at one-hundred percent. A reasonable estimate has him running at maybe sixty-five, and with this new development he’s guessing he’ll get rocked back to about fifteen.

He manages to stumble into the kitchen and get himself a glass of water, but it’s a near thing. His mom follows after him, possibly thinking he’s going to pass out or something else completely dramatic. He does feel a bit faint, actually, but he doesn’t really want to open his mouth in case he pukes.

Rather than drink the glass of water, he splashes some of it on his face and sits down at the table. His mom sits down next to him and pushes his hair out of his face gently. “You don’t have to see them if you don’t want to,” she acknowledges gently, stunning Harry into further silence. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Which is fine advice, but a little too late, all in all. He’s already done plenty he didn’t want to do, and he has no words to tell her about it. He can barely bear to have her sitting next to him right now, when usually he loves her undivided attention more than anything in the world. Right now, though, it feels like scrutiny even though he knows it’s actually love.

 

He turns his thoughts inwards for a second, knowing that he’s being self-critical—really, he’s overly sensitive to his mother’s reaction because he’s judging himself and is worried she is, too. He can’t bear to lose someone else’s good opinion of him.

When he doesn’t respond, she repeats herself: “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

He immediately starts to cry.

 

She rubs his back for a solid fifteen minutes while he cries, then collects himself, then starts crying again. It’s a tedious process, but he eventually tapers off into a series of quiet hiccups. She hands him his water glass and he finishes the entire thing, grateful she hasn’t said anything else. She merely waits for him to start talking, doesn’t try to force him to do or say anything prematurely.

He sighs heavily. “I don’t think I’m ready to see him.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not sure I ever want to see him again.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Of course. You know yourself best,” she says, covering one of his hands with hers.

It’s true, now, that he knows himself best. It wasn’t always true, and acknowledging that hurts much more than Harry would like to admit. He’s been searching others for that same kind of knowing that Louis offered him, and he hasn’t found it. Louis knew him best, once, and now Harry has to make do with know himself instead. Others aren’t good enough, not the way Louis once was. Acknowledging that hurts, too.

His mom is nearly good enough, though, and she does know him pretty well except for the things he can’t tell her because the words hurt too much.

“Didn’t used to,” is the closest thing he can manage to say, the closest thing to the truth that won’t burn his tongue on the way out.

“I know, sweetheart,” his mom says, giving his hand a squeeze.

“You do?”

She merely hums in response, raising one eyebrow as if to imply _mothers always know._ It should fill Harry with relief, but it doesn’t, merely fills him with more shame and a not-unreasonable amount of regret.

“Does it ever stop hurting, then?”

“Eventually, yeah. Cliches abound for a reason, right? It’ll take some time.”

“I’ve already _given_ it time.”

“Time and effort, then,” she replies, the corner of her mouth tilting sadly. She smoothes his hair away from his face. “I know you’re trying.”

“It’s not meant to be this hard,” Harry whines, frowning petulantly.

She laughs a bit. “You’ve always been more sensitive than most, love. So yeah, your first heartbreak was bound to be quite the doozy.”

“It sounds so simple when you phrase it like that.”

“Well, I have a bit more perspective than you, and the wisdom of the ages.” She pats his arm. “Plus I’m your mom. But simple isn’t really what I’d call it, all things considered. Love’s the most complicated thing in the world.”

Harry groans, suddenly hating the way that she precisely has her finger on the pulse when it comes to him, but he accepts the familiarity all the same.

 

Later that night, he deletes two texts without opening them before throwing his phone across the room.

 

He tries not to panic when Gemma wakes him up the next morning, face guilty, her hands clasped behind her back. “What’d you do?” he grinds out, voice gravelly from sleep.

“I didn’t do anything, much like you didn’t do anything.”

“What’d’ya mean?” Harry’s generally confused in the morning, and her being cryptic isn’t helping.

“What I mean is, when you don’t respond to text messages, sometimes people text me and ask if you’re, like, ignoring them on purpose, whether you’ve died, or whether you’ve taken a vow of texting silence.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, put me in an awkward spot. Wasn’t really sure how to respond.”

“What’d you say then?”

“Haven’t said anything. Figured I’d leave that move up to you.”

“I’m not ready to talk to him,” Harry admits, shoving his face beneath his pillow.

“Yeah, I gathered that.” He can hear the sarcasm in her voice even with his head under the pillow. “I meant, what do you want me to say, if anything?”

Harry sighs, removing the protective pillow from his face. “He was your friend before he was mine.”

“Your friend, eh?”

“My whatever he was.”

“I don’t mean he’s not my friend, H, and I, unlike you, have actually kept in touch with him. But I’m not about to gossip about my little brother’s broken heart to his ex-boyfriend, am I?”

“He asked you about whether or not he broke my heart?” Harry screeches, flinging off his blankets and bolting upright.

“No, he asked if you were ignoring him.”

“Oh.” He falls backward, groaning. Come to think of it, Gemma did mention that Louis asked that question of her. “Well, I mean. I am. So.”

“Is that what you want me to tell him?”

“Knock yourself out.”

 

Harry doesn’t have any space left for anger, not anymore. He’s full-up of desperation and hurt, his body consumed completely with memories and a yearning for love. They never even had time to flourish properly, never had time to bloom into anything real and long-lasting—of course, they always felt real to each other, right from the get-go, but _feeling_ real and _being_ real are decidedly different states.

They were beautiful together, but they were finite. 

He thinks that would have been nice to know that going into it.

 

He throws himself into the musical, hard, ignoring his own angst and the soppy looks Mathias keeps throwing at Luke, who shows up to rehearsals even though he’s not part of the show. Harry does mime like he’s puking at one point, but only to Maria and Lucy, who both cluck sympathetically before demanding that he braid their hair.

 

The opening night of the musical is a rush, and Harry flits around backstage in full makeup and costume, adoring the whispered exultations and silent hugs from his castmates. He nearly passes out from the thrill of being onstage with friends, in front of his family and assorted loved ones, and as he bows, he relishes the feel of his long hair falling over his face.

 

Harry relishes the hugs his mom and Robin and Gemma give him, loves the feeling of his friends surrounding him in the corridor outside of the theater so they can have a group hug, and really adores the flowers from his director.

He hates the feeling he gets when he spots shaggy-haired, blue-eyed, loud-laughing, charismatic, beautiful Louis.

He immediately does an about-face, heading back to the dressing room so he can cry completely alone.

The dressing room is empty, so he cradles his flowers gently in his lap and starts to remove his makeup with coldcream and cotton pads. Gemma recommended this ages ago, and Harry considers her a makeup sage, knowing that his face breaks out when he interferes too much with his pores.

Cat darts into the room and plants a sloppy kiss on his brow before groaning for micellar water. She makes do with coldcream, the same as Harry, swiping at her face carefully.

“Saw your boy out there, you know,” she says, dabbing at her left eyelid.

“My boy?” he sneers, licking his lips once.

“You’re not fooling anyone, babe.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: musiclily


End file.
